


It's Rarely What You Think

by ObsidianJade



Series: Just Twinny 'verse [2]
Category: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: #coulsonlives, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Humor, Language, M/M, Random Gratuitous Movie References, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-06-12
Packaged: 2017-11-06 03:45:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObsidianJade/pseuds/ObsidianJade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sequel that is actually the prequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/389450">It's Anything But Simple</a>, in which the acid-spitting things are explained, Clint snarks, Will is confused, Thor is ET,  JARVIS has an intergalactic calling plan, and Phil is most assuredly not thinking of flesh-eating rabbits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> When I posted It's Anything But Simple, I considered it a very brief diversion that was essentially a throwaway fic, albeit a very fun one. And then it started getting kudos and comments and people asking about continuation and my brain exploded. Fortunately, it exploded in a more useful manner than it usually does, and fanfic resulted. So, I accidentally series? 
> 
> This story will be four or five chapters, and two other shorts in the same 'verse are already planned. 
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I make no claims to ownership and no profit. This is a work of fiction and the blame for it can be placed on the awesomeness that is Jeremy Renner and Clark Gregg. 
> 
> As always, thanks to the I-cannot-describe-her-greatness-enough Irismustang, because she has endured my epic levels of flail over this entire mess with remarkable grace.
> 
> Also, #CoulsonLives. Tag it, tweet it, whatever it, just spread the word!

Phil Coulson was trying to keep his eyes going in twelve directions at once when he caught sight of a familiar shock of dark-blond hair across the street, on the ground floor of a parking garage.

“Barton, why the hell are you out of position?” he demanded into his radio, eyes already moving onward, watching as Ironman blasted one of the ravening.... well, Thor had called them something, but none of the twelve languages Phil spoke gave him the ability to pronounce something eleven syllables long and composed entirely of consonants. 

There was a heartbeat of silence on the other end of the comm before an arrow whistled in front of Phil’s face, passing so close to him that the ends of the fletching actually brushed the tip of his nose. It thunked into the brickwork of the building beside him, point embedding a solid four inches into a hairline crack in the mortar. The two junior agents that were assigned as Phil’s backup both jumped, staring incredulously at the arrow until the resounding echo of Cap’s shield rebounding called their attention back to the battle.

Scrubbing a knuckle against the underside of his nose to banish the tickling sensation of an impending sneeze, Phil tracked the arrow’s trajectory backwards, following it until he caught a glimpse of Barton, leaning around a support pillar of the parking garage, ten stories up.

Phil flicked his eyes between them once, from Barton to the other man; Barton’s perfect doppelganger, wearing suit pants and a leather jacket, backpack secure across his shoulders, watching the chaos of Loki’s forces with surprise on his face... but no fear.

Phil swung a glance back to the hovering junior agents. “Dalton, take over comms. Barton,” he called into his own radio, taking a step back from the command nest, “switch to channel five.”

The receiver in Phil’s ear crackled a little as he switched it over, unsurprised to find Barton already on the new band.

“...flattered, but the middle of a fight isn’t really the best time for phone sex, sir,” Barton was saying, his tone far more innocent than he should have been able to manage.

Arching an eyebrow, Coulson turned his gaze deliberately up to the tenth story of the garage. The archer had vanished back into the shadows, but Phil knew when someone’s eyes were on him. “What are you wearing, Barton?”

There was a muffled choke on the other end of the line, and Phil permitted himself the faintest trace of a smirk.

“My.... tac suit...?” 

“Good. Because there’s a man, ground level, directly below your position, who could be your exact double. Civvies and a backpack. You don’t by chance have an identical twin you’ve neglected to inform SHIELD of, do you?”

In the brief pause that followed, he could almost hear Barton blinking, working frantically to process the information. Despite his joking, Barton was deep in sniper mode, his entire focus set on analyzing the course of the battle below him, monitoring the movement of both enemies and allies alike, waiting for the perfect shot.

It went a long way towards proving that Hawkeye could indeed flirt in his sleep, as he’d so often argued to Stark.

“If I do,” Barton answered after a moment, voice tight and all trace of humor gone, “they neglected to inform me, too.”

Keeping his shoulder to the doppelganger, Coulson maintained a watch on the man from the corner of his eye. There was no possibility the man was a civilian. His carriage was too trained; not the stiff formality of the military, but the hunting-cat grace of something far more dangerous. He was standing still and calm, watching a battle between giant reptilian wolves and superheroes raging in a New York City street without any fear on his face, only incredulous disbelief.

“Main channel, Hawkeye,” Coulson ordered softly, but switched his own radio two channels back instead. “Agents Alden, Dunworth, Pelltey,” he ordered, taking care that his voice didn’t carry. “Potential hostile sighted. Ground level directly below Hawkeye’s position. Wearing civilian clothing but appearance is identical to that of Agent Barton. Approach as potential shapeshifter. Avoid hostility if possible, secure unharmed for interrogation.”

The affirmations were coming back just as Dalton yelled ‘Sir!’, and Phil’s near-preternatural sense for trouble had him wheeling back to the fight in time to see the shimmer of green-gold energy in the middle of the shattered street resolve itself into the form of Loki himself.

The Hulk’s roar echoed off the buildings surrounding them, loud enough to shatter windows, and Coulson saw Cap duck, shield above his head as the razor rain showered down. Iron Man’s cursing carried over the radio loudly enough that Coulson could hear it from Dalton’s headset - his own was still set on the agent’s frequency, not the Avenger’s.

Which meant that he didn’t have time to order the Hulk back before he leapt. 

Coulson’s hand was already retuning his radio as the Hulk went airborne, the apex of his jump five stories high, and started hurtling down towards the god of chaos.

Loki glanced up, watching with dispassionate eyes as a ton of green-skinned fury shot towards him, and almost casually raised a hand. A burst of energy, painfully bright, exploded from his palm, and the Hulk was hurled away like a leaf in a gale. 

It took almost the length of a full heartbeat before he smashed through the wall of the hotel, thirty stories up and more than five blocks from the battle.

Loki’s appearance had pushed Barton’s doppelganger from the forefront of his mind, but even the presence of the trickster god couldn’t stop Phil from hearing the cry that echoed up from the unknown man.

“No, no, no, God no, ETHAN!”

“Hulk’s up,” Barton commented dispassionately, even his voice in the earpiece eerily similar to the one that had just screamed from across the street. Then, “Oh, _shit_.”

“Barton, report!” Coulson snapped, wheeling around to watch as the three agents he’d ordered in converged on the doppelganger. Who was trying to run towards the hotel the Hulk had just struck, through the middle of an active war zone populated with monsters greater than human imagining.

“Armed civilian in - fuck. Coulson, get medevac to that hotel,” Barton snapped, and Coulson felt his stomach sink as he switched channels again for long enough to relay the order. Across the street, the doppelganger was fighting the agents with the vicious terror of a man fighting for something he loved more than himself. 

But he was fighting as a human. A trained human, there was no question, but a human none the less.

Coulson watched as Pelltey drove a kick into the back of the man’s knees, unbalancing him enough to let the three get the upper hand, cuffs slapped tight around his wrists. The man didn’t stop fighting, though, even with his hands restrained, lashing out at the agents around him with powerhouse kicks, and even catching Alden with a solid headbutt that knocked all two hundred and thirty pounds of agent squarely on his ass.

Pelltey got a knee in the solar plexus, probably in retaliation for the earlier kick, and Dunworth got the guy’s shoulder in her throat before Phil finally muttered “Enough of this,” withdrew his sidearm, and fired off a single shot, neatly one-handed, towards the melee opposite him.

The bullet drilled into the concrete support of the garage, six inches above the doppelganger’s head, showering all four combatants with concrete dust.

The doppelganger’s reaction was instantaneous - dropping to one knee, he kicked Pelltey in the stomach to get clear of him, rolled his way clear, and came up with his back against the pillar Phil had just shot, standing far enough back that it provided adequate cover.

The three SHIELD agents had barely moved, and Phil resisted the desire to fire again, just to urge them to scatter like frightened chickens. 

His earpiece gave a cough of static - no, just a cough, he amended, as Barton’s half-amused tone drifted through. “Everything all right down there, Coulson?”

From his vantage point, Barton couldn’t see the scuffle going on below him, but there was no doubt he’d seen Phil draw.

“Under control, Barton,” he answered tersely, and muted his radio long enough to yell across the street, “Stand down, all of you!”

The doppelganger risked a peek around the side of the support pillar at the order, and Coulson deliberately caught his eye, reinforcing his command with a glare.

“I repeat, stand -”

Something crunched behind him.

He didn’t need to see the widening of the doppelganger’s eyes, or the dawning terror in the faces of the junior agents, to know what had made the sound.

Turning, he found one of the gigantic creatures they’d been combating barely twenty feet from his position, rounding the corner of the building that had kept it hidden from all of them - until now.

Ten feet tall at the shoulder, with six legs and a glossy black hide of thick armored plates, the things were a madman’s fever-dream of a wolf, torn from the heart of nightmares. The earless head had a muzzle the length of Phil’s arm, double-rows of teeth showing through a foam of red-tinted saliva. 

His gun was still in his hand, and Phil didn’t hesitate in raising and firing. In his ear, he could hear Barton’s invective turning the air blue, and he threw up his forearm to shield his eyes when an incendiary arrow slammed into the creature, spewing a burst of flames across the armored hide.

It was something of a redemption for the five junior agents on the street with him that all of them - even Dalton, who had a gun in one hand and the radio in the other - took his cue to open fire on the creature, and six clips worth of .45 hollowpoints plus another pair of incendiary arrows battered the creature.

Unfortunately, all of their weapons had precisely the same effect they’d had all along - which was exactly none.

Except for the arrows.

Those made it angry.

Breath sticking in his throat, Coulson watched as the thing turned, fixing dull green-glowing eyes on Barton’s position... and leapt. 

It cleared the distance - fifty feet in length and over twice that in height - without any apparent effort.

Coulson heard Clint curse once, a startled, breathless exhale, and then shout, a sudden, startled cry of pain.

And then he went silent.

Phil ran.


	2. Chapter 2

He could hear the other Avengers clamoring across the airwaves, shouting for status updates, arguing across the lines, and Phil keyed his receiver back on and snapped for quiet, then, more quickly, “Barton, report! Barton!”

He was on the fifth floor staircase when he heard racing footsteps catching up with his own; sparing a glance over his shoulder, he saw the doppelganger racing after him, handcuffs nowhere in evidence and a bared gun in his hand.

“I’m on your side,” the doppelganger snapped when he noticed Phil’s attention, and Coulson settled on a grim nod, dumping the expended clip from his gun and dropping it into his pocket, slamming a fresh clip home without breaking stride.

“For your sake, I hope so,” he answered levelly, and ran faster.

They burst out onto the tenth level shoulder to shoulder, guns raised, the echoing clang of the metal door striking the wall announcing their presence. The stairs let out on the opposite side of the parking garage from where the wolf had landed, of course, and Phil circled the level at a dead run, leaping over two bags of groceries discarded by a civilian who had seen the battle and fled. The gallon of milk had cracked, just slightly, and was dripping out slowly onto the oil-stained concrete.

“Coulson!” came the familiar shout, before he’d even rounded the central divider, and he exhaled a breath of relief at the sound of that welcome voice.

“Nice of you two to join me,” Barton said dryly, as Phil and the stranger staggered to a stop some thirty feet from him, their guns raised and eyes wide. “Now how about a little help?”

His eyes never wavering from his target, Coulson spoke slowly into his headset. “Avengers, requesting backup on my location. Asset hostage but unharmed.”

“Tell him that’s what happens to birds that pick on wolves,” came Stark’s immediate rejoinder, but Coulson knew the billionaire well enough to hear relief in his voice. 

“I’m not sure what Stark said, but tell him he can go fuck himself,” Barton chimed in, sounding far too cheerful for someone who had the paw of a giant mutant wolf pinning him to the concrete. 

The creature’s feet were easily the size of a man’s torso, big enough that it could have crushed him whole, but it was holding him down almost delicately, the toe-pads spread to either side of Barton’s waist, the larger pad pinning his legs from hip to knee. The archer’s arms were caught under the thing’s toenails, which looked more like scythe-blades than anything that could justifiably be called claws. 

Phil spared a moment of thought to thank Stark for his latest donation to Barton’s gear; elbow-length tactical shooting gloves, stronger and lighter than the guard or glove Barton had been given by SHIELD’s technicians, comfortable and effective enough that he would actually wear them without argument. Right at the moment, the gloves were probably the only thing keeping Barton’s forearms from being sliced open by the inner edges of those talons.

Despite his snark, Barton was keeping very, very still. 

He had obviously identified Phil, as well as the fact he wasn’t alone, from the sound of their footsteps on the concrete. Even when they’d rounded the corner, Barton hadn’t once looked in their direction, his attention focused on the creature above him. 

Outside of the garage, he heard Iron Man’s repulsors whine and then quiet again, but the thing holding Barton down didn’t react, never lifting its head from where it was gazing down at the archer. A reddish foam of saliva bubbled from between the creature’s lips, gathering on the tip of the long muzzle for a moment before gravity caught the froth, dropping it onto Barton’s chest with a muffled splash.

The slow hiss that boiled up almost as soon as the stuff struck warned Phil of the truth, even before Barton swore, muscles in his exposed upper arms going tense, fighting against the urge to struggle even as the acidic foam began eating through the material of his vest. 

“Avengers, be aware, the creature’s saliva is acidic,” Phil said, his voice barely more than a whisper into the headset, and heard a muttered curse that sounded as though it might have been Rogers.

“That explains a bit,” Stark replied in normal tones, before adding lightly, “Might want to duck, by the way, you’ve got incoming.” Outside the garage, the repulsors’ whine kicked up to a scream, the echo throbbing off the concrete around them.

“Barton, cover!” Coulson yelled, shoving the doppelganger backwards, behind the bulk of an oversized SUV.

“With what?” Barton shot back, but even as Phil dove behind cover himself, he saw Clint wrench his arms free of the claws pinning them down to shield his head.

He’d barely done that when the growing scream of the repulsors was joined by the roar of the Hulk. The wolf-thing looked up at last, tearing its gaze away from Barton just in time to see a blur of green hurtle through the open side of the garage with perfect precision, slamming into the wolf’s side hard enough to send the creature sprawling. 

Barton scrambled free the instant the weight of the creature’s foot vanished, staggering a little on numbed legs, but he reached the car where Phil and the doppelganger sheltered, already tearing at his vest with frantic hands. 

The wolf staggered upright, shoving aside the station wagon it had been thrown into, and shook its head to reorient itself, scattering gobs of foaming acid across the length of the floor. Clint had to scramble backwards to avoid being splashed again, his eyes wide as he struggled with his vest. 

“Fucking dammit this stuff burns,” he muttered, jerking shakily at the clasps until Phil lowered his gun, trusting the stranger to have his back, and pulled a knife from the holster on his ankle. A few quick cuts slashed neatly through the damaged vest, Coulson careful not to cut Clint’s skin along with the disintegrating fabric. 

Hulk snarled something low and unintelligible and jumped sideways when the wolf darted at him, long claws tearing into the concrete floor, scattering broken clumps of cement around it. The thing darted again, a snapping, vicious lunge, and the Hulk pivoted, spinning on one foot, forcing the creature to twist to follow it.

In that moment, when the thing was off-balance, the Hulk swung forward, strong hands wrapping around two of the black-scaled legs, taking a front and back leg firmly in his grasp. The middle leg of that side lashed out, and the others heard the Hulk bellow even before the ugly seep of green blood appeared, four long, parallel slashes cutting shallowly across the Hulk’s massive torso. 

Coulson heard the doppelganger choke on what sounded like a weak breath of laughter a split-second before the Hulk hurled the wolf out through the open wall of the garage. Outside, they heard Iron Man’s repulsors shriek, no doubt volleying the airborne creature farther away from their location, and the stranger sank down against the side of the car with a shaking gasp that mutated far too quickly into a half-hysterical giggle.

“I don’t see how you can find any of this amusing,” Coulson called back to the man, running a critical eye over Barton’s injuries, quick-assessing the reddened, blistering skin.

“Acid. It’s always funny,” Barton answered, his own grin a little weaker than Phil would have liked. The archer’s focus was occupied with stripping his gloves off, turning them inside-out as he removed them to keep the smears of acid contained.

“Defenestration,” came the shaky, half-giggled correction, and Phil eyed the doppelganger with a bit of concern. What he’d thought earlier was calm under fire was rapidly giving way to a clear case of shock.

“Hilarious,” Coulson agreed blandly, and jogged back to where the grocery bags were spilled across the floor, retrieving the slowly-dripping gallon of milk. There was nearly three-quarters of the gallon still left; it would have to be enough.

He jogged back to Clint on the shortest line he could take, already unscrewing the cap of the jug. “Arms out,” he ordered, unnecessarily, because Clint had already dropped to his knees on a clear patch of floor, arms spread to the side and his head tilted backwards, giving Phil clear access to his chest. 

He hissed through his teeth at the first touch of the still-cold milk, minute tremors spasming through his muscles as he fought to remain completely still. Phil had to clench his teeth to force himself to silence, wanting to murmur words of reassurance to Barton, tell him he’d be fine, he’d be safe, that Phil would fix this the way everyone expected him to.

He was fixing it, apparently. The outward spread of the blistering redness on Clint’s chest had stopped, and the worst of the injuries seemed to be soothed somewhat. The milk wasn’t a perfect cure, but it was enough to neutralize the worst of the acid, at least halt the progression of the damage. 

“Birdie hurt?” 

The low rumble of a voice from beside him was unexpected, but decades of dealing with the theoretically impossible kept Coulson from even twitching at the Hulk’s words as he carefully poured another round of milk over Barton’s skin.

“Just a little burned, buddy,” Clint answered, utterly calm, even if the pain had tightened the edges of his voice. “Coulson’s fixing me. You okay?”

The Hulk grunted, poked a rough finger at the four shallow, parallel lines down his torso, the lines of green blood on them already drying as the wounds healed. A faint growl escaped him at the pain, but he ignored the wound in favor of walking past them to inspect the scattered groceries.

A sharp, echoing thunk behind them jerked both Phil and Clint’s heads up, but it was only the doppelganger, standing behind a glossy, early-seventies Pontiac Firebird, watching with obvious satisfaction as the trunk he’d just kicked obediently popped open. Pushing the trunk up, he glanced in, nodded faintly, and withdrew a still-sealed package of disposable shop cloths, which he tossed over to them without comment.

“Belong to someone you know?” Coulson asked, catching the pack one-handed as he poured the last of the milk over Hawkeye with the other. 

The stranger shook his head slightly, closed the trunk with a defiant shove, and leaned against the rear panel, crossing his arms and shoving his hands into his armpits in an attempt to hide their shaking. “No. It’s got an oil leak,” he answered, nodding towards the front of the car, where a small but fresh puddle had formed under the engine. “It’s well-maintained, so the owner would likely have supplies to top off the oil and clean up afterwords.”

“Nice deduction, Sherlock,” Barton remarked dryly, swiping the package of towels from Phil and tearing it open. 

“Blot, don’t rub,” Phil chided automatically as Clint started to wipe the milk off his arms; he received an eyeroll in response, but Barton dabbed obediently at the skin of his torso, working his way around the burns. 

“Thanks,” the stranger answered, either missing Clint's sarcasm or choosing to take the words at face value despite it. “It’s what I do. Did. Something,” he muttered, curling in a little tighter on himself, the shaking that had started in his hands working up into his shoulders. He was too pale by half, paler than even Barton’s pain-grey face.

“What’s your name?” Coulson asked, drawing the man back as best he could, and had to fight the urge to shift uncomfortably when he found himself on the receiving end of a lesser version of Barton’s sniper stare. The expression had the same calculating undertones, the weighing of everything playing out behind those eyes.

“Brandt,” the man answered finally, the name riding out on an exhausted sigh. “William Brandt, field agent and former Chief Analyst for the IMF.”

“Nice to meet you, Agent Brandt,” Coulson replied, forcing his best bland-and-professional voice. SHIELD had never worked directly with the IMF, but Phil Coulson had never let details like that keep him from being prepared. “I’m Agent Phil Coulson with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division under Colonel Nick Fury. This is Specialist Clint Barton.”

“Pleasure,” grunted Clint, followed almost immediately by “Jesus, Coulson. Get your shoes off.”

He managed to stop the less-than-brilliant ‘What?’ from escaping him, but Phil still blinked in surprise as he looked down to find that his dress shoes (Fury always teased him, wearing a suit to every battle zone he could), were being steadily devoured from the soles up by the same acid that had taken the skin off Clint’s chest.

“You must have walked in it getting back to me,” Clint said, looking torn between alarm and something bearing a close kinship to smugness. Phil thought back, briefly analyzing the path that he’d taken from the groceries - currently being poked through by the Hulk - to the archer, and realized with a sigh that Barton was right.

“As usual,” he answered dryly, gathering up his half-destroyed knife from where he’d dropped it next to the remains of Barton’s vest, “you alone have the capacity to make me utterly lose anything resembling common sense.” 

“Don’t bitch about my charm, just get your damn shoes off before the stuff amputates your toes.”

Suppressing the urge to roll his eyes, Phil slashed through the laces with what was left of the knife-blade - carbon-steel was no match for alien acid saliva, unfortunately, he’d _liked_ that knife - and kicked his shoes away, checking the underside of his socks for any damage. 

There wasn’t any, which eliminated a minor worry but solved none of the problems at hand. “What were you doing in New York, Agent Brandt? The IMF is based out of the Capital.”

The defensive hunch of Brandt’s shoulders deepened, the tremors spilling across his body growing stronger. “I was supposed to meet up with my partner,” he answered blankly, staring unseeing at the oil-spotted floor. “He was in the hotel room that your...” he nodded awkwardly towards the Hulk, obviously lacking a word to describe the creature, “smashed through.” A weak, tortured-sounding laugh escaped him as he shook his head. “Ethan trusted me so much these past few years... and now I’ve fucked up again.”

“Ethan?” Clint repeated, standing up and taking a few cautious steps backwards so that he could lean on the hood of a dented Lexus and begin unlacing his boots. “He’s the brown-haired guy?”

Brandt only nodded, not looking up from his miserable huddle, and Barton glanced sideways to the Hulk, who was poking through the spilled groceries, munching on anything he found appealing. 

“Hey, Hulk, buddy,” called Clint, and received a grunt of acknowledgment. “The guy in the hotel room back there -” he pointed, cautious of pulling the damaged skin on his chest, and Hulk blinked towards the building in question - “how hard did you hit him? Because he wasn’t a bad guy, you know.”

Phil wouldn’t have thought it was possible for a giant, rage-fueled monster to look _petulant_ , but the Hulk certainly gave it the old college try.

“Hulk not smash,” the creature grumbled, almost primly, and promptly stuffed three jelly doughnuts into his mouth, red jelly trailing out at the corners of his lips. He chewed twice before pausing somewhat belatedly to offer the three remaining in the box to Barton. “Birdie want?”

“Nah, I’m good, thanks,” Barton answered, sounding like he was trying not to chuckle. Undeterred, the Hulk offered the box to Brandt. 

“Other Birdie want?”

“Um, no. Thank you,” Brandt managed, eyes wide, while an exasperated Coulson ran his radio through the frequencies until he found the one the medical team he’d dispatched was using. Why they could never stay on their assigned channel, he would never know. 

A few short queries later got him the information he needed; Ethan was badly bruised but not seriously broken, and was being transported to the hospital under heavy sedation, given a tendency to throw punches even while semi-conscious. Brandt laughed when he relayed the last, relief stripping away the tension that had balled his shoulders and leaving him to slump against the side of the car, laughing silently while he shook.

“Bossy want?” Hulk asked, now extending the box towards Coulson himself, who valiantly resisted the urge to facepalm before accepting one of the remaining doughnuts. 

“Thank you, Hulk,” he said levelly, wondering who the hell had been instilling proper manners into their pet monster, and whether said person should be given a commendation or committed to a mental hospital. 

Around another bite of jelly doughnut - very good jelly doughnut, he’d have to look into this brand - he dialed his radio back to the main channel. “Avengers, status report.”

“What are you eating?” came Stark’s voice immediately, only to be followed by, “Wait, no, I don’t care, just save me some, I’m starving. And if you’re all done with your coffee break up there, would you mind sending the Hulk down so that he can throw this thing a little farther away this time? We’re still having problems with it, it’s the last one, and it’s being kind of stubborn.”

The high whine of a repulsor's blast punctuated the statement, and the Hulk - who had apparently been listening - closed the doughnut box with surprising delicacy, setting it aside on the roof of a half-destroyed Buick. “For Soup Can,” Hulk said firmly, and leapt out of the garage. He hadn’t even reached the ground when Stark’s indignant _‘Did he just call me Soup Can?!’_ echoed over the comms, and Coulson barely managed to mute his end of the line before he exploded into laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Defenestration, for anyone who doesn't know, is the act of throwing something or someone out a window. And yes, Brandt's sense of humor is a little cracked, but it's been a rough morning for him.
> 
> Also, yes, that is a valid use for milk in emergency situations.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's short. Sorry about that. But the next one is long enough to make up for it!

By the time Coulson managed to get himself under control (six point three seconds, a personal worst), Clint had pulled off both his boots and tossed them lightly at Coulson. His aim was as alarmingly perfect with the decidedly unaerodynamic footwear as it was with everything else, and Coulson received two gentle but precise ‘kicks’ in the kneecaps.

“Is there a particular reason you’re throwing footwear at me, Specialist?” he asked dryly, regarding the boots with a raised eyebrow as he tried to sort through Stark and Rogers’ comm chatter. 

Barton rolled his eyes in response. “I’ll be going directly to the hospital once we’re done here. You, on the other hand, are going to spend a ridiculous number of hours chasing junior agents around, trying to supervise cleanup for this little fiasco. I can do without shoes, you can’t.”

It was a valid point, Phil conceded, and leaned against the bumper of what had probably been an SUV before the battle so he could pull them on. It wasn’t the first time he and Barton had shared wardrobes, and, given their track record with destroyed clothing, it wouldn’t likely be the last. 

Speaking of.... Tugging the laces of the boots into tight double-knots and instinctively tucking the loops of the laces in, Phil straightened up, stripped off his jacket, and yanked at his tie, earning near-identical raised eyebrows from his two companions.

“Uh, sir...?”

“Media, Barton,” he answered calmly, fingers working rapidly down the buttons of his dress shirt. “If they catch photographs of you with those burns, our press department will be fighting off rumors of your imminent death for weeks. Here,” he added, shrugging out of the shirt and tossing it lightly to Barton, who caught it one-handed.

“I.... Thank you, sir,” Clint mumbled, hesitating for a moment before carefully slipping the shirt over his shoulders. 

The radio crackled in Coulson’s ear for a split-second before Thor’s voice boomed in. _“Son of Coul, are Hawkeye’s wounds truly so grievous?”_

Despite himself, Coulson couldn’t quite suppress a smile. “His injuries aren’t grievous at all, Thor, just ugly. He’ll be fine.” 

The demigod’s answering sigh sounded like a small tornado sweeping past the microphone. _“Still, it angers me that my brother’s quarrel has again injured one of my friends. Please, relay my apologies to him.”_

“Thor sends his apologies for your injuries,” Coulson repeated to Hawkeye once he’d muted his comm, before adding, “And what happened to your earpiece, by the way?”

Barton shrugged, cautiously. “The wolf stepped on it.”

Because it couldn’t have been something simple. “Of course,” Coulson sighed, and switched his microphone back on just as Stark asked warily, _“Uh, Thor, what exactly is it you’re doing?”_

The demigod’s voice crackled again, interference on the channel rising as Thor drew in his electric power. _“One blow from me will not end the war, but it will at least stop this battle.”_

 _“Now wait just a minute!”_ Rogers burst out, his voice mingling with Coulson’s own “Thor! Stand down!”

“Yeah, that’s really gonna happen,” Clint snorted, vaulting off the hood of the Lexus and running for the open wall, Phil barely a step behind him. His face twisting into curiosity, Brandt jogged after them, gun still in his hand.

Gripping the edge of the waist-high concrete wall with both hands, Phil surveyed the street and mouthed a curse when he caught the crimson flash of Thor’s cape, hurtling towards Loki’s exposed back. With Iron Man and Captain America occupying the trickster god’s attention, a finely timed dance of attack-block-dodge on the street in front of him, Loki didn’t sense Thor’s presence until too late.

The god of thunder slammed into his brother’s back, arms wrapping around the green-clad waist tight enough to compress ribs, startling Loki enough that his shout echoed up through the buildings around them. The trickster god started to stumble, shouted something that might have been a profanity or a spell - and vanished into thin air. The bodies of the wolves, their existence in the human world apparently tied to Loki’s attention, disappeared without a trace. 

And Thor, his arms still clenched around his brother’s side, vanished with him.

 _“God dammit,”_ said Captain America, and Stark responded by bursting out laughing. 

_“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s not funny, it’s just, Cap swore, and honestly Coulson I can feel you glaring at the back of my head from here, please stop, it’s making me very uncomfortable.”_

Coulson didn’t feel the need to point out he was actually glaring at the _side_ of Stark’s helmet, not the back, and instead radioed back, “Stark, how long has it been since you’ve slept?”

_“How am I supposed to keep track of - hey, JARVIS? ...that long? I didn’t realize that was humanly possible. Huh, I should try for a Guinness record, maybe. Another one, I mean, I’ve already -”_

“Stark,” Coulson interrupted, “get your post-check done with Medical, then go back to the Tower and sleep. That’s an order. Rogers, your watch.”

 _“I appreciate your confidence, sir.”_

The people who thought Rogers was a sweet, innocent boy who was incapable of annoyance or sarcasm clearly didn’t know him very well. 

“Rogers, if any one of us can get Stark into bed, it’s you,” Coulson shot back, and switched comm channels while Cap was still sputtering, doing his best to ignore Barton's adrenaline-fueled laughter beside him. 

“Medical, this is Coulson. Requesting transport from the parking garage, two mobile patients, one in shock and one displaying first-and-second degree burns. Be advised, shock patient is the partner of the man extracted from the Hulk’s hotel room.”

 _“Advised and acknowledged, Agent Coulson. Transport ETA two minutes,”_ came the quick reply. Coulson took a moment to offer a brief thought of gratitude to whatever deities actually cared to listen for people who actually knew how to behave in a professional manner, then kicked a still-laughing Barton lightly in the ankle to get his attention. 

“Two minutes to transport. Hop, Barton.”

“Like a bunny, sir,” the archer grinned back, and Coulson very carefully did not think of Monty Python marathons and flesh-eating rabbits.

He snagged the doughnut box from where the Hulk had left it, and passed it off to Pelltey once he’d shepherded Brandt and Barton back to ground level. “Give these to Iron Man,” he ordered the junior agent, who peered longingly into the box.

“Both of them, sir?”

“Unless you’d like to argue with the Hulk, yes.” 

He found it depressingly hopeful that the younger man didn’t - quite - faint at the thought.

The transport - which was not an ambulance, but an oversized S.H.I.E.L.D. SUV, modified for the inconspicuous transport of specific assets, particularly those the agency didn’t appreciate having photographed on stretchers - rolled up to the front of the garage a minute later, spilling out two concerned technicians before it had even fully stopped. Brandt barely had time to collect his backpack from where he’d dropped it before he was wrapped in a shock blanket and hustled into the vehicle. 

Barton met Phil’s eyes briefly as one of the EMTs assessed his wounds, then threw a wink at his handler before hauling himself into the back of the SUV, submitting himself to the indignity of the stretcher there. The techs were already unpacking burn dressings when the doors slammed shut.

Sighing softly, Phil withdrew his sunglasses and his phone and hit the speed-dial for the Avengers Wing of New York Private.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added here: oblique references to both the Avengers movie and my fix-fic for the same, [Bleed the Hours](http://archiveofourown.org/works/398262). Nothing particularly spoilery, though.

When he finally arrived at the hospital two hours later, a trim, neatly-dressed woman in a doctor’s coat greeted him at the door of the Avengers’ Wing. Her liberally grey-streaked brown hair was pulled back in a tidy bun, and her eyes were sharp but amused behind her glasses.

“Have to say, Coulson, with you and your team around, I am never bored,” she smiled, cuffing him lightly in the arm with a tabbed file folder she was carrying. “And I hope you appreciate the scramble we had to go through with the number of tests you ordered.”

“Have I ever given you reason to doubt my appreciation, Doctor Hadis?”

“No, but that’s because you know the second you do, I’ll send videos of Barton singing ‘Over the Rainbow’ from the last time he was on the good drugs to Tony Stark.” It was an idle threat, of course; Sandra Hadis was nothing if not professional, and was fiercely loyal to all of the Avengers. And if she happened to have a soft spot for Barton, well, it was probably only because he was under her care the most. 

Falling into step beside the woman as she swept down the hallway, Coulson merely raised an eyebrow. “If you think ‘Over the Rainbow’ is embarrassing, you should hear him singing Bonnie Raitt in the shower.” 

“Now that’d be something to talk about,” she snorted, slapping the folder against his chest. “Your test results. And while I know SHIELD doesn’t bat an eye at running roughshod over patient privacy, the boy actually did sign off on releasing them.”

“He’s IMF,” Coulson replied, flipping the folder open. “He understands the nature of the job.”

Hadis whistled in response, low and impressed. “IMF, huh? Superspooks, that bunch. Explains why our punch-happy patient looked familiar, though. Ethan Hunt, their golden boy.”

“You’ve worked with IMF before?” Coulson asked distractedly, staring down at the results of the tests in confusion. These were.... not the results he’d anticipated.

“Overseas,” Hadis answered with a flippant wave of her hand, one that was generally code for _‘I’m not supposed to talk about that.’_ Phil made a mental note to review her deployment history again. “We were apparently the closest trustworthy facility when Hunt nearly got himself killed doing something incredibly stupid that we never heard the details of. That was... fifteen, twenty years ago now, though? He was still a kid then, and Edwards drew the short straw on dealing with him today, so I only saw him briefly. No wonder I didn’t recognize him.”

Coulson nodded briefly, flipping the pages in the folder to skim the results of the next test, and the next, frown deepening at every identical result. “Anything you can tell me about William Brandt?”

“You mean, anything that isn’t spelled out in his DNA profiles? The same thing I’d tell you about any field agent. Don’t sneak up on him and don’t poke him when he’s sleeping.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Coulson replied, with perhaps more sarcasm than he actually intended. Hadis made a snatch for the folder in his hands, no doubt intending to apply it to the back of his head, but his inevitable post-mission headache was already verging on a migraine, and he pulled it out of her reach. Scowling, she jerked to a stop and turned to face him, jabbing a finger at his chest.

“Look, Coulson, you’ve got everything you asked for in your hands. I can’t help if the answers aren’t what you were looking for,” she told him, her steady, serious tone underlaid with military steel. “And if you so much as consider making me strip either one of those boys down to their component atoms just to satisfy your goddamned government curiosity, I will personally guarantee that your next proctology exam is a little slice of Hell.”

“Noted,” Coulson answered blandly, snapping the folder shut and tucking it under his arm. The message was silent but clear - _case closed_ \- and he politely extended his hand in an ‘after you’ gesture. “I would like to speak to them now, so if you would lead the way, Doctor?”

“Twelve-seven, find them yourself,” she shot back, but her voice was warmer than before. “I do have duties other than herding your superpowered kittens, Coulson,” she added as she marched off, lab coat swinging behind her. Coulson made a mental note to properly introduce her to Captain Rogers at some point. He had a feeling they’d get along spectacularly.

Room 1207 was no trouble for him to find, particularly with Barton half-pacing, half-skating across the linoleum floor in his socks in the hallway outside. An orderly was glowering at him from the nurses’ desk, but given that Barton wasn’t attempting a ceiling-ward escape or utilizing impromptu projectile weapons against passing nurses, the staff was mostly leaving him alone.

“Barton,” Coulson called, and the man executed a neat spin on his socked feet as he turned to face his handler. Briefly, Coulson wondered about taking Clint ice-skating in Rockefeller Center the next time they had a day free, provided invading hoards didn’t destroy it before then. 

“Report,” Coulson ordered, shoving thoughts of free evenings and use of ice skates as weapons to the back of his mind. Clint, with his usual lack of regard for noncritical orders, stared assessingly at his handler, eyes lingering on the lines of tension excavating themselves on Coulson’s forehead.

“How’s your head, sir?”

“Tolerable,” Coulson replied, then, because despite the government’s best efforts, he was still, at heart, an honest man, added, “Mostly. Status?”

“I feel like I’ve been attacked by a very sanitary vampire,” came Brandt’s voice, drifting around the open door of the room beside them. 

Coulson didn’t even have to be looking at Barton to see the gleam start in the archer’s eyes. “No glitter bombs, Barton.”

Similarly, he didn’t have to be looking to see the absurd pout the younger man affected. “You excel in sucking all the fun from my life, sir,” Barton mock-sighed, his laughter tinging the edges of the words with a cheerful hue. 

Sighing, Coulson peered into the room, finding Brandt sitting in one of the visitor’s chairs opposite the unconscious Hunt’s bed. He’d changed out of the dusty, sweat-damp clothes he’d left the garage in, now wearing a lightweight, cream-colored sweater and jeans, a laptop open across his thighs. He was typing at an impressive speed with his left hand and rubbing the inside of his left elbow through the sleeve of his sweater with his right. 

“I would use the painkillers as an excuse for Barton, but the truth is that he’s like this whenever he’s not on-mission,” Coulson offered, only half-apologetically.

“Yes, but you love me anyway,” Clint replied, sliding backwards past Coulson on the slick floor.

“Often against my better judgment, I do,” Coulson answered, watching critically as the world’s best marksman hummed idly and skated around a hospital hallway in his socks. “Have you been checked for a concussion today?”

“It’s minor. I’m only seeing one and a half of you, and I can still kill anyone I’m told.”

Ignoring the sound of Brandt choking on a snort of laughter behind him, Coulson very patiently caught Barton by his elbow and towed him into the room, ignoring the archer’s startled protests. Despite his arguments, however, Barton kept his knees locked, sliding easily along the floor at Coulson’s whim, and allowed his handler to deposit him in the chair beside Brandt without fuss.

“Meditation exercises. Now.”

Clint pouted at him in response - which looked nowhere near as ridiculous as it should have - and Coulson shook his head, determined. “I am not going to explain to Fury how I got you through a fight with an acid-spitting mutant alien wolf relatively unscathed, only to let you break yourself when you passed out sock-skating around a hospital floor,” he said firmly, and Clint settled back in the chair with a largely theatrical sigh, closing his eyes and steadying his breathing.

The exercises were something that they had worked out years ago, to help Clint with the strain of going through the stages of sniper mode, post-mission adrenaline high, and the inevitable adrenaline crash that followed. To hear Clint explain it, the meditation was a lighter, less hyper-focused version of his sniper-state, one that allowed him to focus his attention inward, rather than on a target. 

The jokes about tantric sex were unavoidable, but Phil was willing to tolerate the sarcasm when they both realized how much the meditation helped ground Clint in the hours and days after missions.

Turning his attention from the slowly-calming archer to the bemused doppelganger sitting beside him, Coulson fixed Brandt with a patient stare until the man looked up to him. 

“How is Agent Hunt?” Coulson asked, nodding toward the bed. 

Even drugged into unconsciousness, the man was restless, hands twitching near-constantly against the white sheets, the occasional jerk of his head or kick of a leg rumpling the linens further. His chest was bare, and the left side of his body was already starting to purple from his injuries, richly-colored bruises forming across his shoulder and running down under the bandages wrapped around his ribs. A gauze pad was taped over his shoulder, no doubt abraded when he’d struck the wall, and the skin around the IV in the back of his hand was already bruised from his restlessness. Standard hospital-issue restraints were buckled around his wrists, and Brandt had apparently declined to undo them, which told Coulson as much as he needed to know about Hunt’s reactions.

“Bruised,” Brandt answered quietly, closing his laptop and slotting it between his hip and the arm of the chair to keep it still. “I helped put his shoulder back into place, because he started lashing out whenever the doctors came near him.”

The young man’s face looked haunted as he spoke, old ghosts dancing behind his storm-blue eyes. Coulson crossed his arms, staring expectantly down at him, and Brandt shifted uneasily in his seat.

“I’m his partner,” Brandt said softly, when the silence between them grew too loud. “I’m his backup. I should have been there, and I shouldn’t have let him get hurt.”

“I didn’t realize the IMF had begun selecting agents with clairvoyant abilities,” Coulson answered dryly, and Brandt gaped at him for a moment before shaking his head, a weary laugh slipping from him.

“I’m not psychic, sir. Although I don’t exactly have to be, Ethan attracts trouble like a magnet. Even milk runs turn into international incidents when he’s involved.”

An image of Tony Stark flashed briefly before Coulson’s eyes, and he squashed a grimace with the same near-violent force he was often tempted to apply to Stark’s head. 

“I’ve seen Ethan defy death a thousand times or more,” Brandt continued, bringing up his shaking hands to rub at his face. “And every time he does something so goddamned stupid it should kill him, he manages to pull it off. And then this morning, I was going to meet him so that we could get this damned mission wrapped up tonight, and I see that green agent of yours go flying into his hotel room, and all I can think is, ‘That’s it, that’s the one that’s going to kill him, and I never had a chance to stop it.’ ” The soft, shaking laugh had the drag of a sob behind it, but Brandt’s eyes were dry when he stared up at Coulson again. 

“Ethan’s the one I owe.... everything. And he trusts me, probably more than he should. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t do everything in my power to save him.” 

Coulson couldn’t help but glance sideways, to where Barton sat, his breathing gone invisibly slow as he grounded himself back in the world, in his given body rather than the body of his bow. Two years ago, Coulson had caught a bullet through his chest on an op gone wrong, from an enemy sniper they hadn’t seen in time. Clint had dropped the other sniper within a breath, but he hadn’t left Coulson’s side until the doctors had assured them both that the senior agent would make a full recovery.

When they had, Barton had fled to the range and butchered targets until his fingers bled, as though the mark of his own blood on his hands could wash away the imagined stain of Coulson’s. 

It had been worse after the Invasion and the battle with Loki. Clint had been weeks recovering from the damage he’d inflicted to himself from that, and the scars on his fingertips would likely never fade. 

“That level of guilt isn’t healthy, Agent Brandt,” Coulson said instead, knowing that Barton could hear them perfectly well, even if he didn’t appear to be listening. 

“It’s what I’ve got,” Brandt shrugged, and Coulson saw the corner of Barton’s mouth twitch up. It was the exact same response Clint himself had given Coulson when the man confronted him over his bloodied hand and the guilt that drove him to it the first time.

“Is it,” Coulson answered blandly, his mind calling up the memory of Brandt, fighting frantically to reach Ethan through a war zone of alien creatures when the Hulk had crashed through the wall of the hotel. 

Brandt must have read more in his tone than most people could, because the man shot him a look, hollow-eyed and full of mingled defiance, anger, and guilt. It was an expression Phil knew painfully well from Barton’s face. “Some of us have to take what we’re given,” Brandt said softly, pulling the laptop back into his lap and curling over it, defensive. 

“Only if you’re not brave enough to take what you can get,” Barton muttered, blinking his eyes open. When Brandt made a sound of protest, Barton turned his gaze on his doppelganger, the laser-intensity of his eyes boring into Brandt’s. “I mean it. Have you even tried?”

“Only one of us gets off on near-suicidal adrenaline rushes,” Brandt muttered, ducking his head again and waving a hand between himself and the bed. “I’ll give you a hint; it’s not me.”

“It’s not a leap to your death, idiot. It’s a step.”

“I’ve taken steps with Ethan before. They tend to be off the edges of cliffs. Frequently literal ones,” the analyst grumbled, shifting the laptop around until he was hugging it to his chest, using it as an unconscious shield. 

“Aren’t metaphorical ones scarier?” Barton asked, with the bemused curiosity of someone who found the thought of free-climbing the Eiffel Tower entertaining rather than terrifying. 

While Brandt chewed his lower lip, debating the question with far more seriousness than it probably deserved, Coulson took the opportunity to cross the narrow space between the chairs and the bed, sneaking a closer look at Hunt’s monitors. He kept his stride even and steady, neither hesitating nor sneaking, both of which would alert a trained agent to danger no matter how deeply asleep they were. 

It worked, too; Hunt barely twitched as Coulson stepped up next to the monitor, eyes flicking across the masses of data on the screen (StarkTech medical displays; a glory of unnecessary complications, in Phil’s opinion). Hunt’s numbers were good; better than one would expect from a man with cracked ribs and a morphine drip, quite honestly. But then, IMF field agents, particularly ones like Hunt, weren’t to be considered in the realm of normal humans any more than Barton and Romanoff were.

 _‘Don’cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me -’_ The blaring chorus of the Pussycat Dolls’ single suddenly emanating from his phone almost startled Phil clear out of his skin. It had a slightly more violent effect on Hunt, however, who thrashed violently on his bed, clenched fists jerking against the restraints, unbound feet lashing wildly, a stray kick nearly catching Phil in the side as he started to leap backwards, only to find a hand fisted in the back of his suit jacket already yanking him away.

When he had his feet securely back on the floor, he shot a glance over his shoulder and met the stormy-blue eyes calmly. Barton, his fingers still twisted into the charcoal-grey wool tightly enough that the seams were digging into Phil’s shoulders, exhaled sharply, his sigh gusting over the back of Phil’s neck and his rumpled jacket. It carried the weight of more relief than the sniper would ever admit in words. “Maybe next time, try vibrate?”

“Maybe next time, I don’t leave my phone where it can be screwed with,” Phil muttered, taking a step away to gently tug his jacket out of Clint’s grasp. Brandt had ducked past them as soon as the space was wide enough, and was leaning over the head of the bed, one hand on Hunt's uninjured shoulder as he soothed the man back to a resting state. The way his eyes darted back to Clint, wide and worried even as he tended his partner, told Phil that Brandt hadn’t even seen Clint move.

Quashing a brief surge of smug pride in Barton, Phil ducked out of the room to answer his still-squalling phone.

 “Coulson.”

  “Hey, Bossman, who’s the IMF and how long have they been secretly employing Clint?”

Phil sighed. Because Nick Fury had many, many years of suffering before him before he repaid the indignity of assigning an erratic political sciences major as Phil’s personal assistant. And because of course Natasha thought it was hilarious to teach the girl to hack files she had no business seeing. 

“Miss Lewis,” he answered levelly, turning away from the room as Clint snickered. Not that it would help; for all that Clint claimed to suffer hearing loss, it only seemed to crop up when it was convenient for the sniper to ignore something he shouldn’t. When it came to things he _should_ ignore, his hearing was as acute as his eyesight - and he considered Darcy a prime form of entertainment. “The IMF is a high-security government agency that will not appreciate you hacking their files, and Agent Brandt is not Agent Barton. We’ve checked. Was that all?”

“I didn’t hack the files, Tony did. And no, I actually called to let you know that ET phoned home, or something, I mean, it’s not really home and it’s not our ET, so -”

There was a click on the line that Phil thought - for one brief, shining moment - meant that the call had been cut off. The shine vanished into a black hole of aggravation as soon as Tony Stark’s voice interrupted over the hacked line. 

“First off, if the security on the files was good enough that I couldn’t hack it, they wouldn’t have a problem. Secondly, what Miss Lewis is trying and so badly failing to articulate is that Heimdall called JARVIS, and, wow, we’ve invented intergalactic calling plans, we’re awesome - and our pet god is fine, he just got a little lost up a tree, if you can believe it.”

Given that the tree in question was likely Yggdrasil, Phil could believe it very easily. “Mister Stark. First of all, I have no doubt that you would hack the security on the files regardless of how good it was, because you can’t stand not knowing things you aren’t supposed to. Secondly, stop doing it anyway. And Miss Lewis -”

“Here, Boss.”

“Stop reprogramming my ringtone.”

“That was Tony too!”

“I have better taste than the Pussycat Dolls, sweetheart.”

Phil took greater pleasure than he should have in hanging up on them both.


	5. Chapter 5

Somewhere in the Universe, or multiverse, or whateververse, there was a deity laughing at him. Phil even had a sneaking suspicion as to the identity of the god in question, but Loki’s attempts to make his life miserable would probably have been more subtle than back-to-back phone calls from people he truly did not wish to speak to.

Sighing, he stared down at the phone in his hand with the sort of exhausted resignation that only came at moments when he wondered if he wouldn’t be better off working as some nine-to-five office schmuck somewhere in southern Jersey.

His phone, completely indifferent to his misery, continued to blare the Imperial March from Star Wars. 

Because really, the music that had introduced Darth Vader was perfectly suited to announcing another powerful, intimidating, black-clad master of all he surveyed. 

Flicking his thumb against the screen to answer the call, he lifted the phone to his ear with an instinctive wince. This was about the biggest screw-up of any mission he’d ever overseen (bar one fairly spectacular exception, but he didn’t even want to consider that. They were still rebuilding parts of New York.) “Sir?”

“Agent Coulson.” Fury’s voice was pitched towards amusement rather than rage, but that meant essentially nothing. Phil had seen the man laugh during live firefights. “I just received a call from the Secretary of Defense.”

Live firefights would have been significantly less alarming than that statement. “Sir?”

“He was very interested in why one of the agents of the IMF, one Ethan Hunt, is listed as being a patient in the Avenger’s Wing of the hospital when he and another agent in your possession, one William Brandt, whose DNA apparently holds the secrets of the Universe if the number of tests you ordered is any indication, are both supposed to be flying to Warsaw in an hour,” Fury rattled off, barely pausing for breath. A stab of pain through Phil’s temples told him that he was clenching his teeth; he carefully forced himself to unlock his jaw before answering.

“There was an incident during the battle with Loki, sir,” he answered, turning away from the room and walking steadily down the hallway. His skin was still itchy with the after-effects of adrenaline, and he’d always thought better when his feet were moving. 

“What sort of incident, exactly?” The amusement was gone from Fury’s voice now, replaced by exasperation and the underlying threat of bodily harm. 

“The Hulk was caught unexpectedly by Loki’s magic, which ended with him compromising Agent Hunt’s hotel room and injuring Hunt. Agent Brandt has elected to remain at the hospital with Hunt, which I believe is for the best.”

He didn’t have to explain his belief. Any agent that had survived in the field as long as Hunt had wasn’t exactly going to be a paragon of emotional or mental stability, and very few field agents reacted well to waking up restrained in unfamiliar places. 

“I see,” Fury answered, the bulk of the threat fading from his voice, and a bit of the tension in the back of Phil’s neck dissipated. “And the DNA tests?”

Phil blinked. “Have you accessed Agent Brandt’s files, sir?”

He could virtually hear Fury glowering at the other end of the phone. “I have. And I’ll be speaking to Stark later regarding tampering with secured files.”

Phil exhaled a short breath of laughter, which he choked off when Fury growled. “I’m sorry, sir, but Stark hasn’t actually tampered with those files, nobody has. The photos and physical data are all correct.”

It wasn’t often that you heard a man like Nicholas Fury at a loss for words. Phil savored the two seconds of disbelieving silence, not bothering to subdue his smile when Fury’s incredulous _“What?”_ finally broke over the line.

“Agent William Brandt is is Clint Barton’s perfect double, sir,” he answered, doing a precise about-face at the end of the hallway and making his way back towards the room. 

“I won’t ask how thoroughly you tested that,” Fury said dryly, and Phil nearly tripped over his own feet.

“Sir, I would never!”

“Don’t tell me you’re exempt from twin fantasies, Coulson,” Fury shot back, and Phil stopped short, embarrassment burning his ears red.

“I wouldn’t subject Agent Brandt to that after such a short acquaintance,” he countered, ignoring the redness he knew was creeping up the back of his neck. “That’s what the LMDs are for.”

Fury’s roar of laughter on the other end of the line told him that he was well enough forgiven, and Phil put his thumb over the pickup of the phone long enough to exhale a sigh of relief as he started walking again.

There was a moment of quiet from Fury’s end, the faintest rattle of computer keys reaching through the phone line. When he spoke again, his voice was level and calm. “I scrambled Romanoff out of Croatia. She’s been withdrawn from her mission and is currently reassigned to Poland.”

Phil - who had stopped, instinctively, when Fury began to speak - blinked several times before he managed to pull his aching thoughts together. “Poland, sir?”

“Yes, Phil, Poland. Warsaw, Poland, to be more specific, since I don’t need the IMF crawling up my ass because we broke one of their agents and then refused to play ball when they needed help!”

“Sir,” he replied, the epitome of professionalism, and hesitated a moment before asking, “How did Romanoff take the change of orders?”

“I learned a few vocab words,” Fury answered, his tone desert-dry and echoing with sarcasm. “You’re lucky I don’t actually expect you to teach your people manners, Coulson.”

“Sir,” he answered again, biting down on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing as he remembered the Hulk, offering him doughnuts in the middle of the acid-splattered parking garage. 

“Our boys in red-green-and-blue are back at the Tower,” Fury continued. “Keep Barton in check and make sure Brandt and Hunt don’t break themselves any worse. The computer guy from Hunt’s team is apparently rigging a feed to Brandt’s laptop so that they can be voyeuristic bastards from their hospital beds. By the time Romanoff and Hunt’s team has reached their objective, the IMF should have one of their local safehouses cleared and prepped for Hunt and Brandt’s arrival.” A pause, then, “I am sorry to stick you with this, Phil, but it’s not the sort of thing I can give to anyone less than my best.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, sir,” Coulson answered automatically, but he knew that Fury could hear the smile in his voice. 

“When I have to resort to flattering you, Coulson, the world will be ending for real. Now get your ass back in there before your boyfriend starts establishing the aerodynamic properties of Jell-O.”

“Right away, Boss,” Phil answered, and calmly hung up on the most powerful man in the world, shoved his phone back in his pocket, and headed back down the hospital corridor to wrangle the world’s greatest marksman and a pair of international spies. 

There were days when he contemplated being a nine-to-five office schmuck, but the truth was, he wouldn’t trade this life for _anything._  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Elsewhere in the Universe, the deity laughed on.

 

~ END ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of Rarely, but fear not, good readers, the sequels are already in the works! I'm out of town (and essentially without internet) until the middle of next week, but you should have more crossover crack by next weekend if all goes well. 
> 
> Buckle your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen, this ride is just getting started!
> 
> ~ Jade


End file.
